booo that mess. I hope you get it up in time to save everything.

Ok....that didnt sound good:lol:

*edit because Doug is a dirty dirty old man...well...man, not really old...sort of up there compared to me, but whatever....*

I hope you get the ALKALINITY up in time to save everything.


stupid doug

Join the club man!! :lol: I am having a tough time getting my whole triangle up... Ca is low (<400) Alk is low (6.4-7.4) Mag (<1260)...


Good Luck!

Well I had everything going smoothly and was keeping up with it all but then got busy with other stuff kind of at the same time the tank apparently decided to have a big growth spurt. My big red cap is growing ridiculously fast all of a sudden.

So I guess ALK dropped real fast. Like from 8 to 4 in a week.

Not sure if its just from growth or not though...

Regardless, nothing looks like it will die or anything. Just a tiny bit if recession on the encrusted part of one acro. Hopefully it will stop now that the ALK is on the way back up.

Its now at 5.5

Seems to be a whole rash of alk sucking coral incidents lately. Same issue for me (dkh 6), although not as low as yours. 4?...:faint2: Seems to low to be just "coral usage".....no? Whats your ca & mg at?

Ca 450
Mg 1100 (raising as well)

Big water change tonight and ALK is up to 6.5

I am kind of worried its going back up too fast though.

I would let it sit at 6.5 for a day or 2 before bumping up again... Nothing good comes from doing stuff quick.. :wink: Or just cut your doses in half... Or do both.. :lol:

Speaking of which, I need to go test after my dosing last night..

Yeah I agree. I think I will do another water change tomorrow which will help raise it a bit and in the mean time cut my two part ALK dose in half. Or keep it where its at since apparently its too low of a dose anyways.

I think corals have used up a lot of ALK but I also think my ALK dose of two part is too low. So this drop may have been slower than I think. Still was relatively fast but checking my testing, it was probably over two and a half weeks and not one week like I thought.

So...ran out of regent for the Elos ALK kit and used my Salifert kit tonight instead.

It came up with 7. Don't know how accurate this is but most of the corals looked great again tonight.

Anyone know how trust worthy the Salifert ALK kit is? I have been told not to use it in the past as its very inaccurate... :neutral:

well since I have been using the marin fauna, CLaude from germany is saying that Salifirt is off by 2 PPm , i dont believe that. so its actually saying that your ALK is 5 instead of 7, i think that is a crock IMO
I have been using them for years and have had great sucess with them

Ok, well this morning when I tested with the Elos, it was 6.5

I don't think it would have dropped to 5 today especially since I dosed two part.

I am on the fence about getting the Elos kit again. Not because I don't like it but man its a joke how few tests it does for that price.

I think once my ALK is stable and the tank looks good, I will keep using the salifert test to keep levels where they are, based on the salifert reading.

I've been using Salifert for Alk and Mag... Elos for CA, NH4, NO2, NO3, PH.. I prefer working with the Sali's, but think they are both as accurate as I need...

Ya I agree. I think for now I will keep using the Salifert since its almost full still and I don't want to buy the Elos kit again.

i bought a new kit about a month ago and the new kit has a 30ml bottle instead of a 20ml so thats a nice change for once,

Ok, thats great then.

Love your profile picture by the way ;)

Always something...

My tusk decided to try to eat a very large Bristle worm I think. Looks like he bit a cactus :lol:

I moved a rock today and out floats a huge bristle worm. About 10 minutes later, 'Hades' comes begging for food with dozens of tiny little 'prickles' stuck in his head, all around his mouth :neutral:

I was kind of worried but he doesn't seem to care. Hes in rough shape though between the bristles stuck in his head and his shredded tail from the Hippo Tang's continued abuse.

Poor guy! The Hippo still won't leave him alone eh? I was hoping your big Sailfin would maybe put the Hippo in his place.

Well after the Sailfin went in the tank, the Hippo seemed to calm down and behave for almost a week. Now all of a sudden though he is back to being a bit of a bully :(

The Hippo has also taken a few shots at the much larger Sailfin too who just runs and hides as well. Kind of annoys me because now I think the Hippo has seen all the other fish in the tank defer to him and he is back to king of the tank. No fish seems to want to put him in his place.

As things are now, I will let it go a bit longer. If it gets worse though, the Hippo will have to go. I just hope it gets better...I would hate to loose the hippo.

The strangest thing about all this is that *knock on wood* I haven't seen ich on any of the fish since the Sailfin went into the tank. Its actually weird to see the hippo without spots :D

Cats are neat and stuff.

I thought your thread was in short supply of a bit of off-topic babble.

Yeah.

Mostly because you have a reef lol.

Yeah but my reef fell yesterday again.

Not looking so great right now. Another rock slide...

I decided it might be best to A) Put the bigger rocks on the bottom and B) move the huge red cap down lower so it doesn't keep shading other corals and also falling on them :(

Really the tank looks quite different but not much actually moved. The left side stayed the exact same and the main structure on the right side didn't change much either but moving that big cap really changed how things look. I also took the time to give a few corals some more room now that I am seeing good growth out of them.

There...hows that for pointless babble?


Ooops...thats on topic though isn't it???

Pretty ballsy move there. Ballsy because you didn't snap a picture. I take pictures of the BACK of my tank for you guys so you can see the cool furBalls and lintPiles I'm cultivating. Sheesh.

<sniff>

Sorry. I didn't mean it.

I was wrong not to take pictures but trust me...I was not in the mood :neutral:

I actually was quite frustrated with the whole thing happening...again.

Since you brought up both cats and pictures...

I kind of like this shot of our little cat with four eyes :lol:

http://i144.photobucket.com/albums/r...th/Yeah179.jpg

Much better =)

Rockslides are nasty things. Are your rocks all stacked or are some fixed together in some way?

Stacked that's the problem.

I shouldn't really say rockslide though. Only one rock fell and the big red cap on the right side.

So basically all I did was make sure the right side was a little more secure and put the cap on the bottom kind of near the middle.

I will take pics tomorrow. The tank seems to look much different but really not much moved. I guess some corals did but the main structure stayed the same. Its just too bad because I have had no intention to move anything but the tank keeps forcing me too. Oh well...still looks good I think.

I do see some cyano coming back though :(

Ugh...this is REALLY starting to test my patience.

I got home from the Canucks game in a great mood...few beers, Canucks won, picked up my playoff tickets...

...then I got home to see the tank had another rockslide. LOL. Actually I really did just laugh this time and walk away.

Went back over the tank a moment later to check out the damage. Pretty bad this time. Soooooo many corals were crushed into pieces :(

I think its time to rethink this right side of the tank :neutral: I think its the Hippo to be honest. He wedges himself into the smallest spaces he can find over on that side of the tank and I have seen him actually tip rocks over a few times.

Well...I guess I know what I am doing tomorrow.

Sorry to hear that (canucks and rocks).

My wife's gonna be ****y if the flames get edged out in the conference so I'm a Flames fan of sorts.

Sounds like you need to glue the rocks together or use acrylic pins?

Well sorry to say but...get ready for your wife to get '****y' then :neutral: The way the Flames have played for the past 6 weeks they would be lucky to win more than a game in a row against anything more than a minor league team...

Anyways, Yeah I have to do something about the rocks.

I have to be less stubborn and this time NOT put them back the same way. Its obviously not working. So far I have rearranged the right side a bit and its much more secure and also kind of looks nicer I guess.

I will take some pictures tonight or tomorrow.

So things are really going to be changing with the tank.

My fiance and I have decided to change it to a FOWLR and set up a much smaller reef. For one, I am going through Puffer withdrawal. This is the first time in about 12 years I have not owned one and first time in about 6 years I have not had a saltwater puffer.

Secondly, the big reef is just way too much work for me after only a few months. Its consumed my life a bit and I just don't like spending so much time on my tanks. I also feed my fish as much as they want, all day long and thats not working out so well with the sps, even with ZEO.

And lastly, the cost is just adding up way too much. Just maintaining calcium and alk right now is insane. Weekly 30G water changes are getting old and costly.

Oh and I have a friend who needs a good home for both his Porc and Golden Puffers. :mrgreen:

So I am building (or maybe buying) a cube tank this weekend. Somewhere under 30G. Keep my favorite corals and sell the rest. The cube will be skimmerless/sumpless and NO fish. Just a few shrimp. I will be able to load the FOWLR up with fish.

Cube will just have a dosing pump for two part and an auto top off. Thats it.

Anyways, big changes this weekend and I will try to take pictures along the way.

No more ZEO at all of course. If anything, I will go to vodka dosing on the FOWLR to keep nitrates down.

Let me know what sps you are selling. I really like some of the pieces you have!

the cube sounds like a good idea.

you should make a 24x24x18 for a cube. its an awesome size, and good for controlling flow. (i know its a little bigger than what your looking for)

no fish? aww come on man! how bout a pipefish?

Yeah that would be nice but the only problem is I don't have room where i want to put it.

Pipefish could be cool too. I would have to see about flow though since this will be an sps tank and might be a little too much for a pipe. Your tempting me though cause I have always wanted one!

I am not to concerned with fish for the cube since I can get my fish fix with the 200!

We'll see. I am pretty sure plans will keep evolving and changing over the next few days. All I know is that the big tank will be FOWLR and I will keep a smaller tank for coral.

Sure I will. But to be honest, I will be keeping most of the nicest ones ;)

Although I may just keep frags of a lot of them and sell the colonies. I prefer to watch stuff grow.

The hope is that between selling my wavebox and some coral, it will pay for the new tank :)

Ohhhh sad news... :sad: I really liked your reef man... its a great looking tank.. FOWLR's just seem to lack something IMO... (corals! haha)

Anyways, good luck with the switch..